


twitter drabbles

by decadencethief



Category: Andromeda Six (Visual Novel), Castlevania (Cartoon), The Magnus Archives (Podcast), Vast Error (Webcomic)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 5,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22833439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decadencethief/pseuds/decadencethief
Summary: A collection of drabble requests from twitter.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	1. TMA - Basira - angst

Basira’s world ends thirteen days after the apocalypse. There’s no complex ritual, no otherworldly beings of fear summoned from the abyss to rain terror and suffering on all of humanity. No pivotal moment that marks the end of all things.

No. It’s much more prosaic than that. She’s just too damn good at her job.

It’s a long hunt, drawn out. It’s hard to pursue leads in a world that’s become a crime scene; harder still when every fibre of her body revolts against it. It’s like some cruel joke, to run into so many dead ends, so many ways out that she could take and no one could blame her. But she just can’t do it, can she? She can’t give up.

She can’t break her word.

Her hunt takes her on an arc across an anguished, demolished London, through all these spots that used to mean something, but are now little but rubble and hollowed-out memories. Then, at long last: she finds herself back at the Institute.

Or, she supposes,  _ beneath  _ it. Though the tunnels are as much an extension of it as anything, permeated by the very same feeling that she’s come to associate with the Archives. The air is just a little too thick for comfort, and there’s a constant prickling at the edge of her consciousness, sticky tendrils boring into her mind, coiling around her thoughts. It’s all the more unsettling that she knows she isn’t imagining it.

Still, she pushes onward. Through an endless maze of winding tunnels on the brink of collapse, so deep beneath the earth that she might as well be in the Buried, and through her own thoughts, which seem to expand to fill all the silence around her. It seems no other entities have found their way down here yet, and part of her wishes they had. 

Anything to take her mind off what she came here to do.

Distraction is yet another mercy that she won’t be afforded, however. She loses her way, over and over again, and she’s never been more devastated to find it again.

Eventually, she finds herself in a room. Small, dingy, all uneven walls and murky, disembodied light. A figure’s crouching in the corner, looking too thin, looking wrong, staring back at her with wide eyes that somehow capture all the light from Basira’s torch. Straw-like hair sticking in every direction, unwashed in weeks.

And her teeth - sharp, and altogether too long, and bared at Basira. 

Yet, she makes no sound. Just waits. Huddles tighter in the corner as Basira steps farther into the room. Her hands are balled into fists, a dark liquid glistening down her palms. Her whole body is smeared with it, and Basira doesn’t want to know how much of it is hers.

She stops in the middle of the room. Daisy tilts her head, as if waiting for her next move.

Basira raises her gun, points it at her. Releases the safety.

Inside her chest, her heart shatters.


	2. Vast Error - Taz/Albion - hurt/comfort

“You’ve taken off the ring,” Taz says, and it’s a statement rather than a question.

Albion looks at her hand, at the empty space where her ring typically rests at the base of her finger. It’s odd to see it so bare, odd to be missing this shortcut to understanding her feelings. She’s still getting used to naming them without this crutch, but she doesn’t regret the decision to get rid of it.

Under Taz’s scrutinising look, she’d venture to say she’s feeling  _ irritated, _ perhaps with a layer of  _ self-consciousness, _ but you can hardly blame yourself for that one, her stare is intense. When one of her brows arches up, you realise she’s still expecting an answer.

“I did,” Albion supplies, in an excellent display of stating the obvious. After a moment’s consideration, she adds, “I decided I didn’t need it anymore.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

She doesn’t buy it, though Albion could argue that it’s the truth, in a way.

She could argue a lot of things.

She turns away, biting her lip. How does she explain all this upheaval that she’s had to deal with, without sounding like a gullible fool, or starting to sob again? She wonders whether her friends saw this charade for what it was, whether she was the last to catch on to how far-fetched it was that she, personally, would be the saviour of this world?

She doesn’t want to know the answer.

Taz leans closer, bumping her shoulder against Albion’s side. It’s hard and it makes her tip the other way for a moment, but then Albion lets herself lean her head on Taz’s arm. It’s comforting to feel her warmth next to her.

“That whole thing was rubbish, you know,” Taz says after a stretch of silence.

Albion bristles. “Thank you for boiling down my entire life to just being ‘rubbish.’ It’s just the thing I needed to hear.”

Taz chuckles instead of matching her sharpness. “Not what I said. The ring thing was bullshit. You’re still you without a dumb gimmick that makes you control your emotions better. Which it didn’t actually do, anyway.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve always felt emotions, Albion,” Taz says, “It’s time to stop thinking that you’re any different than the rest of us. Or that you need to be in order for you to matter.”

When she puts it that way, it’s hard for Albion to argue. “Do I make you feel like you don’t matter?”

“Nah. But you do always seem to think you matter just a bit more.”

Albion lifts up her head to give Taz an aghast look. “That sounds  _ awful  _ when you phrase it like that.”

“Yeah? It does?” Taz just smirks back at her.

Albion sinks back against her, closing her eyes. “...I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.” Taz pats her back.

She can feel the tears welling up in her eyes again, so she twists to press her face fully against Taz’s shoulder, as if hiding her tears will make them less real. 

Taz sighs; Albion can feel the fall of her lungs. Then, Taz’s arms come to wrap around her back and Albion doesn’t care if she knows that she’s crying anymore.

“Thank you,” she whispers, then sniffles gracelessly. 

Taz just hums. “I got you.”


	3. TMA - Jon and Daisy - friendship

A gust of wind tugs on the branches of the tree by the window, rustles the few leaves still clinging to it, plucks one off. The leaf, a solid, bright yellow rimmed with the brown of rot, flutters a few inches up into the air, then floats down in a gentle spiral.

Jon follows the descent of the leaf with his eyes. Autumn has found its way to London, and the air streaming through the window is thick with moisture and has a chilly edge. Still, Jon breathes it in deeply, the taste of soil and wet foliage filling his lungs, and his eyes flutter shut as the wind rakes through his hair.

Beside him, Daisy sighs with contentment. 

It’s early afternoon and the two of them have decided to make use of their lunch break to get some fresh air. Both of them need it, Jon knows. In the dusty, quiet confines of the Archives, it’s easy to forget that there’s anything outside, a world beyond the constant feeling of being trapped, of being watched.

It still nags at the back of his mind, the pressure of too many eyes, but he can ignore it when the cold air sends a perfectly ordinary kind of chill down his spine, when the chirping of a bird fills his ears.

Daisy speaks, seemingly attuned to his thoughts. She often is, recently. “You ever think about how there’s an entire world out there, away from all this weirdness?”

“It’s all too easy to forget.”

She laughs, a bark of a thing that’s altogether too short-lived. “People walking down the street, going about their business with their biggest concern that it might start raining before they make it there. What do normal people even  _ do?” _

“Complain about their bosses,” Jon supplies, dryly. 

Daisy scoffs. “Well, we got that covered, don’t we?” 

“I suppose we do.” His own lips quirk up, tentatively, the motion odd and foreign. 

He opens his eyes again, and lets his gaze roam between the trees on the Institute’s grounds. There’s not a single person in sight; the piles of fallen leaves still and undisturbed. For a moment, Jon imagines this is all there is. An empty, abandoned planet, with just the two of them standing sentinel over the vestiges of dying nature - not quite human, but perhaps just enough for it to count.

Daisy is the one to break the silence again. “I wonder what comes next.” Her voice is quiet, brittle like a dry leaf rustling between his fingers. 

“I don’t know,” Jon admits.

“That’s good,” comes the response - not one he was expecting. “It’s... human not to know that, I think.”

He nods. Daisy shuffles closer to him, until her side is pressed up against his. She’s warm, and it soothes a shiver he hadn’t noticed. 

Outside, a solitary, pale spear of sunlight pierces through the clouds. It’s not enough to dispel the encroaching dusk, but for now, it’s enough.


	4. Andromeda Six - June/Ever - angst

Ever watches the form of the man sleeping next to her. June’s lying on his side, facing her, curled around their joined hands. His hair is in his face, casting stark shadows across his skin under the bright lights in her room. It’s been a long night, weaving their way through a thick curtain of meteors, and June came to Ever’s room to make sure she was dealing with the constant turbulence. He found her sat on the bed, arms wrapped around her legs as she stared straight ahead in an attempt to control her nausea.

So, he stayed. He joined her on the bed and talked to her, and every time the ship shook or lurched, he offered a light chuckle or a reassuring smile. He had full faith in the team, he said, and Aya had taken them through worse conditions unscathed. When he saw that his words didn’t dispel the entirety of the tension in her shoulders, he opened his hand for her. Tentatively, Ever took it. 

They’ve been holding hands through the rest of the night, even after the ship’s flight evened out and the fiery tails of the meteors faded from the window. 

June’s fingers are warm and strong, calloused along the insides but tender as they close around hers. For hours, his thumb rubbed gentle circles between her thumb and index, but when he eventually drifted off, it relaxed against her skin.

Ever supposes she should have tried to get some sleep too, but the adrenaline in her system still keeps her alert. She’s content to let her mind wander while she relaxes, her eyes following the rise and fall of June’s chest. It’s slow and rhythmic, almost meditative to watch, and the vestiges of anxiety in her mind slowly let up. Her thoughts slow down.

Then, just as she’s on the cusp of falling asleep, June squeezes her hand. Ever’s eyes snap open just as his grip tightens, painful, around her fingers. His face twists into a grimace of pain, a whimper falling from his lips. 

Ever realises he’s dreaming.

Whatever night terror is plaguing him, it rapidly grows in intensity. A shudder rakes June’s body, his legs kicking convulsively, a moan trapped in his throat. He mumbles something under his breath, hectic and unintelligible.

Her heart starting to race again, Ever leans over him. “June,” she whispers, then repeats it, louder, when she gets no reaction. “ _June_.”

He’s still clutching her hand, and she feels her fingers going numb. She raises her free hand, runs it over June’s shoulder, then presses it to his cheek. “June, wake up.”

For a moment, it seems he’s still not going to, but then his eyes flutter open. They’re unfocused, wide with pain and panic, and he presses back into the mattress as if it will keep him safe.

“June, it’s me. Ever. You were having a bad dream.” She brushes his hair out of his face. It’s damp with sweat.

June blinks once, two times, and then the tension slowly leaves his body. His vision clears. “Ever,” he murmurs, voice coarse and breathless.

“I’m here. You’re safe.” She smiles at him, relieved that he’s coming to. His grip on her hand loosens and she gives his a gentle squeeze. 

Just like that, he smiles at her, soft and achingly vulnerable, and the clouds in his eyes aren’t entirely gone, but when he closes them again, his expression is serene. 

“Thank you,” June whispers, and then he’s asleep again.


	5. Andromeda Six - Calderon/M!Traveller - fluff

He finds Calderon on the deck, bent over one of the wide holographic screens. It’s a map, with the _Andromeda_ blinking in the centre of it. Surrounding it, multiple LED lamps attached to all the planets Briar doesn’t remember, labels that sound like something he heard in a dream. This is his world, or used to be - now he feels like there’s an invisible wall separating him from it, from all his memories.

He’s stopped a few feet into the room, too lost in his thoughts to announce his presence. Calderon notices him anyway, and looks up from the screen. There’s a crease of worry between his brows, but it evens out as soon as he meets Briar’s eyes. A smirk curves the corner of his mouth.

“Something I can help you with, Briar?”

“You’ll need to teach me how to navigate this thing sometime.” Briar grins back at him. It’s easy to tuck his worries away when he has Calderon’s attention on him, his expression softening into something gentler.

He tilts his head now, eyebrow cocked. “Yeah? Planning to become a pilot?”

“You made it very clear I needed to pull my weight while I was on board,” Briar replies, only just able to bite back his grin. “Imagine someone finding out _Andromeda Six’_ s latest recruit has no idea how to do _anything_ on board.”

Calderon gives him a full-blown smirk, now. “You’ve been pulling your weight just fine.”

Briar thinks about the long evenings talking in hushed tones in the Captain’s cabin, an uncertain push and pull at first, but gradually steadier, more relaxed. Then not talking, too distracted by each other’s warmth and the ways their bodies fit together. Calderon’s seemed calmer since Briar started sharing his bed, almost mellow, and he supposes he _has_ been doing a valuable service to the entire crew.

He pulls Calderon in by the lapels to brush their lips together. “I’m glad you think so,” he whispers against his mouth.

Calderon deepens the kiss, arms rising to wrap around Briar’s waist, and for a moment, any other thoughts fade from his mind.

Then, Calderon pulls away and tucks a lock of dark hair behind Briar’s ear. “So, you wanted me to teach you something…?”

“Mm.” Briar licks his lips. They taste of spearmint. “I do. I need a moment to remember what.”

Calderon chuckles, then steps back, pulling Briar along towards the screen. His expression is still warm, but overlaid with the intense focus he has when he’s working. “Let’s start with the basics, then,” he says, and Briar leans against his side, getting ready to listen.


	6. Andromeda Six -  June/M!Traveller - hurt/comfort

The stars glimmer across the sky like drops of blood beading punctured skin. Occasionally, a burst of brighter light somewhere in the distance, and Hazel imagines worlds on fire, wood splitting open with the heat, stone shattering and crumbling into nothing.

There’s a roar in his ears that hasn’t left him for hours. It hasn’t been letting him sleep. Even when he found himself in the hold of the _Andromeda_ , so close to the engines, the mechanical whirr couldn’t drown out the noise.

So, he lies on his back, staring through the overhead window, and pictures planets dying. 

This is how June finds him, on the cusp between wakefulness and sleep, with the glow of the stars blurring together into a wildfire. The hand on his shoulder pulls him back into full consciousness and he sits up with a jolt.

His eyes focus on June, squatting at his side. He watches him the way someone watches a wounded animal, trying to gauge whether it’s going to attack or flee.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” June says. “Were you asleep?”

“No,” Hazel replies. Then: “I can’t sleep.”

June considers him for a moment before gesturing to the floor next to him. “May I?”

“Sure,” Hazel supplies. 

June sits down next to him, leaving a stretch of open space between them. Hazel appreciates it; the heat of another person seems too much to bear right now. And even without touching him, having June there is soothing, a distraction from the screams in his memories. The frenetic beating of Hazel’s heart slows down.

“What’s on your mind?” June ventures after a while. He must know the answer, it must be glaringly obvious what’s plaguing Hazel, but he still gives him a chance to deny it. A way out. 

Perhaps that’s what makes him say it. “It’s my memories. What I’ve got left of them, anyway.”

June hums in consideration. “Did you remember something new?”

“No.” Hazel thinks of blazing fire and disembodied cries. “Not as such, anyway. It’s like… There’s a curtain between me and the people I love, and I can hear them screaming for help, but there’s nothing I can do. I don’t even know _who_ I would find on the other side.” His voice catches on the last words, gets choked. He drops his face into his hands.

Beside him, June is quiet for a few moments. Then, Hazel feels the weight of his hand on his back, rubbing along his spine. It’s not enough to overwhelm him, but it’s warm and grounding and more comforting than any _I’m sorry_ June could have offered.

At length, Hazel can look at him again. “Do you think I failed them?” He can barely bring himself to whisper it. 

“If I’m being perfectly honest with you?” June’s hand pauses on the small of Hazel’s back. “You can argue that I haven’t known you that long at all, but… I’m sure you did everything in your power to protect your loved ones. You would never have settled for less.”

“Do you really think so?” Almost despite himself, Hazel leans into June’s touch. He feels all too vulnerable under his seafoam gaze, parts of him that he can’t see himself becoming exposed.

June nods. “You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. But sometimes, it takes more than one person’s strength to succeed. Don’t… don’t blame yourself that the odds were stacked against you.” June’s voice wavers and Hazel wonders how much of his advice is meant for himself, too.

He feels himself humming in agreement. “I suppose you’re right. It’s difficult to accept, though.”

“It is. But you can take all the time you need.”

And maybe he can. The noise in his ears has faded away, at least for now, and Hazel heaves a sigh. “Thank you, June.”

“You got it.” He takes to stroking his back again. “And, Hazel?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re not alone anymore.”

The two of them settle to watch the passing stars, and in the companionable silence that fills the room, Hazel realises he believes that.


	7. Andromeda Six - Damon/M!Traveller - fluff

“...Case?  _ Andromeda Six  _ to Case, do you copy?” 

Case comes back to himself with a start. He’s sitting at the small desk in his cabin, staring at the music box clasped in his palm. It’s stopped playing by now. His eyes sting with dryness, and he’s not sure when he last blinked. 

Standing behind him, Damon watches him with a mixture of amusement and confusion. Case wonders how long he’s been trying to attract his attention. He feels his cheeks heat up under his piercing blue-eyed gaze. 

“Damon,” he croaks out, pauses, clears his throat. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Anywhere between two minutes and an eternity,” the reply comes, accompanied by a smirk. “I was starting to think I’d need to shake you awake.”

“I wasn’t asleep. I was just… trying to remember.”

“Listening to that music box of yours again?”

Case turns the delicate sphere around in his hand, then closes it with a  _ click _ . “Yeah,” he states the obvious. The music doesn’t help him remember, as much as he keeps hoping it would, but there’s a bittersweet ache between the notes that makes him feel… real, like there’s more to him than the amnesiac stowaway he’s become.

“Why do you keep doing this?” Damon’s voice snaps him out of his thoughts again. There’s an impatient note to it that makes Case face him more fully.

“Doing what?”

“Hurting yourself trying to remember your past.” He gestures towards the music box. “It’s obvious this thing hurts you. Every time you listen to it, you seem like you’re about to cry. So why do you keep doing it?”

Case chews his lip, mulling over his response. Damon studies his face, but doesn’t rush him. Despite his agitated tone, he doesn’t seem angry. Just worried.

“I don’t think the memories I have with this music are good,” Case says at last, “but I feel  _ something  _ when I listen to it. It’s better than the alternative.”

“Then you just need to make better memories.”

Case blinks. “What do you—“

“Start the music again,” Damon interrupts. 

“I…” Case starts, then shrugs, deciding not to argue. He squeezes the box once more, and when he uncurls his fingers, the music rings out again, tender and melancholy. 

Damon offers him his hand. “Come,” he says. 

“What are you doing?” Case asks even as he takes the offered hand. It closes around his and tugs him out of his chair. 

Damon pulls him into the middle of the room, his other hand coming to rest on Case’s waist. “What does it look like I’m doing?” His smirk is just on the right side of insufferable, a faint pink dusting his face. 

Case’s hand comes to rest on Damon’s shoulder by forgotten habit, and as he holds him closer, the music melts from desolate into full of gentle yearning. 

They sway, rather than dance, on the stretch of empty floor in the middle of Case’s nondescript room. Damon still has that expression on his face, between self-satisfied and inquisitive, like he’s testing Case and he enjoys his reaction. Yet, his grip on him is warm and almost reverent, his fingers tapping against Case’s waist with the music.

_ Make better memories. _

Case leans up and presses a fleeting kiss to Damon’s lips. He’s barely able to pull back before Damon’s kissing him back, more insistently, mouth hot against his. Damon dips him back, supporting his waist, and Case thinks that he likes this memory that he’s making very much.

Then, he decides to stop thinking.


	8. Castlevania - Adrian/Trevor/Sypha - romantic comedy

Trevor stands at the foot of Dracula’s castle and the pouring rain seeps into his cloak and fills his shoes. It’s cold, unreasonably so, and he’s still not quite sure where this sudden shift of the weather for the very fucking _worst_ came from. All blue skies and sunlight when Sypha and he had been leaving the castle, and then - storm clouds, distant thunder, and this _damnable_ rain. 

Trevor isn’t one to believe in premonitions, otherwise he might well have discarded the idea of returning to Alucard with the first ice-cold droplets.

Then again, maybe not.

Beside him, Sypha reaches out to squeeze his hand. She’s braving the rain more elegantly than him, hood drawn over her face to keep her hair dry, but her cheeks are flushed and Trevor would wager it’s not from the cold. “Well,” she asks, gives him a sharp grin, “are we just going to keep standing here, or are we going to knock?”

Before Trevor can respond that they can stand here a little while longer, his underwear has yet to be soaked all the way through, she steps up to the gate and hits it with a balled-up fist. Once, two times, the knocks rattle wood and metal and echo through the spacious hallway on the other side. 

Trevor remembers Alucard’s story about his mother banging on Dracula’s door all those weeks ago, and thinks, _bookends._

He wonders if Dracula took his sweet time opening the door as Alucard’s doing now, however. Sypha and he settle in an expectant silence, and for a good three minutes, there’s only them and the rain.

Trevor would like to rescind his previous comment: His underwear is now definitely as drenched with rain as the rest of him.

Then, at long _fucking_ last, the door cracks open and Alucard stares at them from the threshold. If he’s surprised to see them, he’s quick to hide it behind a veneer of polite disinterest. Yet, Trevor can’t help but notice, he looks more dishevelled than his usual, his eyes bloodshot in a distinctly human way.

Alucard has been crying, he realises.

“Sypha, Belmont? Did you forget something?” he asks, regardless, smirking with something that would be mocking if it had any bite.

“Uh,” Trevor supplies.

Sypha grips his hand tighter and — _he already knows she’s stronger than she looks, why does it keep surprising him_ — and Trevor squeezes back, bracing himself. It works, because he hears his voice saying: “As a matter of fact, yes. You.”

Alucard’s eyebrows shoot up. “Me?”

“Yeah, see,” he shifts his weight from his left foot to his right, then back to his left. “Soon after we left here, me and Sypha realised that we, uh, like each other.”

Alucard’s eyes dart from his face, to Sypha’s, to their joined hands. Trevor thinks he sees a flicker of pain on his face before it fades into the same maddeningly neutral expression.

“That was when we also realised we liked you,” Sypha chimes in before Trevor loses control of this conversation, or, worse, Alucard slams the door shut in their faces.

Instead, he just stares at them, mouth slightly ajar. “I… what?”

Trevor wants to shake the man, or, better yet, kiss him. He settles for stepping closer to him, pulling Sypha along. “We _like_ you, you bastard. It doesn’t feel right to leave you by yourself when both of us started to miss you as soon as your pretty face disappeared behind this door.”

“You think my face is pretty?” Alucard asks, and there is the self-satisfied smirk that infuriates Trevor in the best way possible. This time, he’s also blushing, though, and the rosy pink dusting his cheeks has no right to be this charming.

“I do. Don’t make me regret saying it.” Trevor offers him a smile to indicate that he really doesn’t regret it at all.

Something softens in Alucard’s stance, a tension melting off his shoulders. He reaches out to grab Trevor and Sypha’s free hands into each of his. His smile when he looks between the two of them is nothing short of dazzling. “I… thank you. I like you both too, but I never thought…”

“Neither did we,” Trevor says, and he can’t help but chuckle. “Or at least I didn’t.”

“I did,” Sypha confirms. “This has seemed like the logical place for us to end up for a while.”

“You’re unbelievable.” Alucard shakes his head, but he can’t wipe his grin off his face anymore than the other two can. “Come on in, we can keep discussing this out of the rain.”

“That’s a fantastic idea,” Trevor says before they step back into the castle together. He can’t deny the way his stomach twists and knots at the prospect of this _discussion,_ but… he trusts them all to handle it. Trusts them with anything.

As they’re closing the doors to the rain outside, Alucard gives them both a playful grin. “So, were you purposely trying to recreate the way my mother showed up at this place, or…?”

“Oh, shut up!” Trevor exclaims as all three of them start laughing.


	9. Vast Error - Valtel/Necron - fluff/slowburn

Necron comes to check on him a few days after the little fiasco with the regulator.

Valtel is surprised at first, considering the way their first meeting went down, but his being alive and in one piece after he attacked one of Corporate’s finest should have tipped him off that these two don’t operate in a conventional way.

Still, when he opens the door of Gingou’s home and sees the tall, muscular man on the other side of it, his first assumption is that he’s here to continue their investigation.

“Did you have any more questions?” Valtel asks, stepping aside to invite him in. 

“Questions?” Necron blinks, then laughs. “Oh nah, chillax. Jus’ wanted to make sure you were recoverin’ after all the shit you went through.”

Ah. That’s thoughtful of him. Valtel closes the door behind Necron and leads him to the living room where he’s been spending his evening. “I’m fine,” he says. And while that might not be entirely true, he’s getting there. Being away from the maze helps, as does having Gingou back at his side. His head’s clearer than it has been in recent memory, even if he still gets spells of weakness and dizziness.

And then there are the nightmares, but that’s a subject he doesn’t care to broach.

Necron just hums and flops down on the sofa, putting his feet up on the table.

“That’s not—” Valtel pinches the bridge of his nose, then sighs. “Never mind.” He sits down next to him.

“You and your partner clear the air?” Necron asks next, with that same cheerful smile. It’s infectious, Valtel thinks; the presence of this stranger in his living space isn’t as objectionable as he’d have expected.

“We did, yeah,” he responds. “We’re good now. It was… really frightening to think that he’d decided he didn’t want to be with me anymore.”

“I bet. Must be a relief to have it all sorted out now. You gonna be staying here for the time being?”

Valtel nods. “I intend to. I don’t feel up to returning to the mansion quite yet.”

“Can’t blame you. Is it always that spooky, or…?”

“It’s not  _ spooky.  _ It’s just a house.”

“A big, dark,  _ spooky _ house,” Necron responds, and Valtel is sure that he’s teasing him.

“You just don’t appreciate the aesthetic of it,” he says, lifting his chin up in an exaggerated gesture.

Necron scoffs. “You sure ain’t lookin’ too eager to go back to the  _ aesthetic.” _

Valtel gives up with a sigh. “It just seems more lonely than I can deal with right now. It normally doesn’t bother me, but…” He trails off.

“No, I get it. It’s not what you need after you’ve felt so isolated.”

“Yeah.”

They sit in silence for a while, but it’s not uncomfortable. Valtel’s realising that it’s difficult to feel uncomfortable around Necron; there’s something about him that’s so earnest and friendly that he feels himself lowering his guard.

Or it might be that Necron quite literally helped save his life, despite him petrifying a chief regulator and generally being less than forthcoming. 

“Yo, Valtel?” Necron pulls him out of his thoughts.

Valtel looks at him, eyebrow raised. “Hmm?”

“I’m sorry for destroying your maze.”

He can’t help but start laughing.


End file.
